Collating and binding systems for saddle stitchers are well known in the printing industry for mass producing booklets, magazines, catalogues, advertising brochures and the like. Typically, one or more sharply folded and generally pre-printed blanks or signatures are selectively and sequentially fed by a number of spaced signature feeders. The signatures are delivered such that the folded margins or spines of the signatures come to rest upon a collating conveyor line or chain which travels past the signature feeders. The conveyor gathers the signatures, one on top of the other, and moves them, through one or more on-line printing stations, to a stitching or binding station. The assembled signatures then are usually diverted to a trimming station and further led to a labeling station where mailing labels which are pre-printed or printed on-line are affixed. Thereafter, the assembled and labeled signatures are sorted, bundled and readied for distribution.
Prior art systems of this type contemplate the computer controlled production of various demographic editions of books or catalogues of internal and external signatures containing individually tailored information or customized printing on selected signatures. This flexibility is important in satisfying the demands of a particular market or geographical destination. For instance, it may be desirable to offer certain customers or subscribers various features or selected advertising depending upon their special interest, income or occupation. Likewise, it may be relevant to customize products or services contingent upon a customer's previous buying history. For example, a publication may issue one demo edition for parents of newborn children who have purchased baby products, another edition for farmers interested in the latest milking machines and still another edition for recent purchasers of exercise equipment. In each situation, a publisher may utilize various modes of customization such as blown-in card feeding, invoicing, advertising material insertion, renewal notices and tipping, as well as several types of contact or contactless printing.
To provide these demographic versions, the prior art commonly employs an information source which indicates the special interest of each subscriber within a common postal locale. Based on the information source, a controller selectively actuates the signature feeders to deliver certain signatures upon the conveyor to form one or more individualized editions of a booklet or magazine for each subscriber within the zip code area. Information in the source is generally arranged in sequential order so that the formed booklets or magazines leave the conveyor ready to be sorted into groups which qualify for postal rate discounts. As part of the collation process, the signatures are conveyed past one or more customizing stations typically including a label head, card inserter, and/or dot matrix ink jet print heads mounted in predetermined relation to a support for the signatures. Examples of such systems are described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,819,173 issued June 25, 1974 to Anderson et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,121,818 issued Oct. 24, 1978 to Riley et al.
In some instances, a machine for packaging each individual magazine or printed product on the conveyor line is also provided. One example of this type of demographic bindery system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,790,119 issued to McDaniels on Dec. 13, 1988. In this arrangement, a computer controls the dispensing of publications onto a conveyor and selectively deposits appropriate inserts on the publications as they move along the conveyor. A wrapping machine operates independently of the computer on demand to place a polymer film (envelope) around each publication and its appropriate insert. The conveyor then carries the wrapped publication past a printing unit actuated by the computer to address the envelope. The conveyor thereafter deposits the wrapped publications in a stacking machine controlled by the computer to optimally sort the publications for distribution. Finally, the sorted publications are delivered to a binding machine which operates on demand to place straps around the stacks of individually wrapped publications. See also U.S. Pat. No. 4,484,733 issued to Loos et al. on Nov. 27, 1984.
In other instances, machines for encasing stacked, sorted and/or strapped bundles of unwrapped publications en masse are employed at the end of the conveyor line. Examples of these machines are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,708 issued Aug. 4, 1987 to Linder and U.S. Pat. No. 4,831,809 issued May 23, 1989 to Ballestrazzi et al. These machines, known in the art as ideal wrappers, normally operate independently of a computer to place a protective plastic film around the entire bundle of publications before the publications are handled for distribution.
It is desirable that magazines be packaged to take maximum advantage of postal discounts. For example, bundles of six or more magazines to be sent by second class mail to subscribers having a common 3-digit zipcode prefix are entitled only to the basic or highest postal rate. However, a bundled group of six or more magazines sent to subscribers having a common 5-digit zipcode obtains a more favorable intermediate postal rate, and grouping six or more magazines sent to subscribers along the same carrier route, qualifies for a lower still postal rate. Accordingly, it is desirable that a bindery build magazines in an order that facilitates presorting and packaging to maximize postal discounts. In this regard, it would be advantageous in some instances if a plurality of magazines could be built and selectively custom packaged during a given production run, to facilitate grouping the various magazines destined for a given carrier route.
Prior art systems are disadvantageous primarily because of inflexibility. For example, even though wrapping each individual magazine prevents loss of inserts and preserves the appearance of the magazine, it may take too much time and money to wrap each individual magazine on the conveyor line. As a result, there can be a slowdown in production coupled with an attendant loss in selectivity in the customizing capability of the system. Absent the selective packaging of the magazine in accordance with the coded information used to assemble the magazine, there is no distinction between certain magazines which should be wrapped versus other magazines which should remain unwrapped yet be otherwise customized. Additional techniques of customizing selected magazines beyond the realm of conventional ink jet printing and/or supplementing devices need to be considered.
Accordingly, it is desirable that the demographic bindery system offer a greater degree of customization, improving upon the selectivity of the signatures to be personalized, and permit different magazines to be assembled during a single production run for subscribers in a given postal zone irrespective of varying points of customization.